


Degrees of Hell

by crewdlydrawn



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Don't Read This, Gen, I Blame Tumblr, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I took this way too seriously so I'm putting it here, It's not what you think, did you figure it out yet?, intentional capitalization, that's an actual tag, that's beautiful, the Pit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:38:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6184525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crewdlydrawn/pseuds/crewdlydrawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They never asked for or truly earned their existence in hell.  Be it by death or sacrifice, they will leave it.</p>
<p>This isn't about what you think it's about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Degrees of Hell

He had been born in this trap, this prison; it seemed an almost certain fact. If not, he still could not remember anything, no light, no life, before his time within the treacherous Walls. Oh, how those Walls teased, how they feigned admittance to whatever lay beyond, stretching just so, shifting at the touch, all the while confining and encasing. He longed for a different life–ANY life other than this. He was not alone; whether that were an ultimately positive or a negative happenstance, he couldn’t be certain. At the same time, he had company, but also the terrible knowledge that others suffered the same fate as he. Especially one so small as the girl who hung in his shadow, murky though it was in the faint glow that at times passed through the Walls, a trick of hope.

It was cold, in their prison, cold, and dark, and dank in its hellish damp. Even huddled together, there was no warmth to be found. Their time seemed as endless as it was without beginning.

Until that day.

There had been stories passed around among the rabble. Stories of real light shining through the Walls, splaying out over the masses. Stories of Giant beasts looming over the very creation of their world, presiding over the fate of all who lay below. Many trusted the stories without having seen for themselves, but he did not, he _could_ not. Light and something larger than hell were cloying concepts, but, once she had appeared, he spent his time looking out for the small one, earning his name as the Bane of those who wished to steal the bread from her sides. He would not let her be harmed, no matter how many crumbs were lost in countless battles of protection.

Despite his longing, his wish to exist somewhere else, and the larger wish for her freedom, in reality Bane never expected a chance for it to come to fruition. Nor did he anticipate its method. Looking back, anyone aware of the event that was to come would refer to it as The Thaw; a time when frozen hell broke loose of its moorings, a time when all the balance and sense in the world as they knew it inverted.

It was no average day, in all. The girl’s mother was attacked, torn from the outside, broken in every way possible as Bane took the little one away. She had tried to fight, but though she possessed a spirit larger and stronger than the very Walls that contained them, she still was small, barely a speck of crumbs, in her hardship reduced to such little meat with which to survive.

A target is what she became, then; they both retreated to the very edge of the Walls, so close he could feel his skin begin to stick. No matter what, he would not leave her to be broken. There they remained for what felt an eternity, despite the swiftness with which the others advanced, hungry for vengeance against the damage the pair had incurred as they’d escaped the attack. Bane hid the small one—Talia, her mother had named her in secret—behind him, knowing the Wall could harm her, but willing the rest of hell to come for him, first, at the least.

It was then that existence as they had known it upended, shook with the strength of catastrophic quaking, and then the Walls, those terrible Walls that had seemingly forever stood between them and freedom, broke. A crack appeared in what measure of a sky they could conjure, and as if a seam were splitting, light burned through in an ever-widening line, blinding those below as Bane shielded his beloved one. Barely could he hold her, only the moisture from the Wall allowing her skin to stick to his keeping them from separating as they all were tilted, tumbled, and ripped from their prison-home and into an expanse that he could not begin to understand, even if he’d had time to process it. Everything was colors, everything was sound, everything was giant moving beasts, giant mountains that vibrated and hummed and sent steam into the air as the pair tumbled downward.

All thoughts of this Beyond were halted the moment he felt the sting. Harsh sounds lit his ears, the pained and agonized cries of those meeting their deaths, their fates, below and around him. His skin found the heat he once deludedly thought he had wished for, and he fought against its molten tongues lapping at him, sucking his form down deeper.

The rabble fought to find purchase, to pull themselves up and over him, tearing layers away, exposing his half-frozen meat and flesh, but still he held on. He held onto his prize, his small speck, beginning to loosen from his side, her skin crisping even as he lifted her, turned his body, and made for the edge of their new Hell.

“Goodbye,” he bid her, holding her just aloft, above the raging sea that boiled them below.

With a last look, with the others tearing chunks from him as they collided, the little one sprang forth, landing on the side of a thrumming mountain as the rest of them sank down to the depths of nightmarish burning heat.

But Bane did not mind as it hardened his flesh, as he felt himself cook, and the molten fluid penetrate to his core. She was safe. She was free. He ceased his fight.

Outside the boiling, spitting Pit, one of the beastly Giants spotted Bane’s speck.

“Too small for the fryer,” boomed and echoed a voice as large as the universe.

With no way to fight, the girl, the speck, was caught in a landslide, swept over the edge of a cliff and into an abyss of darkness once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Please blame leagueofshadowsconfessions and graceforthefallen on tumblr for this cluster****.   
> Yes. You really did just read a fic about McNuggets.


End file.
